Reviews for PasswordMaker

Video on site is misleading, hate that crap. After I took the time to learn this plug in, I realized that it only auto fills the password, not the user name. This hardly saves me time, compared to other plug ins. Love the security of it, IS IT POSSIBLE TO AUTOFILL THE USER NAME???

This addon is great. It can generate passwords for every website and you can set up individual profiles for websites that put different constraints on the characters used in passwords.

Having just had to move to a new machine I was struggling with the import, however this addon stores its settings in a file passwordmaker.rdf (case-sensitive!) inside the individual Firefox Profile (Firefox help can show you where that is). If you've exported your settings into a .rdf file, copy it into the profile and make sure it is called passwordmaker.rdf (all lower case).

Hope this review helps someone to make this addon work in newer versions of Firefox. I would be lost without this addon generating passwords for me and I'm sure it is a thousand times more secure than similar addons that store the passwords in the cloud somewhere. After all you can choose which characters to include in your password generation and how it hashes the website with your master password. Lots of choice so almost impossible for someone to download the addon and guess your settings.

Developer response

It's much appreciated. I do not maintain the addon anymore, but there are many ports of it to other platforms (including more than one for Chrome, Android, iOS, etc). I try to maintain passwordmaker.org with the port list but it is sadly out of date. Some ports mentioned in the PasswordMaker Forums are not listed at passwordmaker.org yet. Good luck --eric jung, PasswordMaker author.

This was by far the best and fastest tool for password management ever. It was secure, safe and very easy to use. I preferred the ability to list all of the passwords and their respective data in the notes section. Simply C&P the "old" version of a password there would ensure it's retention. Changing the URL data was also a great way to change the resulting password for those sites that require it. I could also save back ups on a USB drive and transfer to another computer. This Addon seems to have been abandoned but rumors abound that it is still alive. Please make the information available so that those of us who want to continue using this can find a way to either help development or get the updated files. It does not allow import in FF 4xThank you.

Developer response

Thanks for the compliments. It's much appreciated. I do not maintain the addon anymore, but there are many ports of it to other platforms (including more than one for Chrome, Android, iOS, etc). I try to maintain passwordmaker.org with the port list but it is sadly out of date. Some ports mentioned in the PasswordMaker Forums are not listed at passwordmaker.org yet. Good luck --eric jung, PasswordMaker author.

JWW - I too am very sad the project is no longer being maintained. One of the smartest and most elegant password tools, where nothing is stored. And there is a version for almost every platform. I wish somehow we could spark an opensource group to continue to maintain this excellent program (especially for the mobile platform, where it is becoming very problematic).

Mozilla - if you are out there, would make a great embedded function in Firefox and a great opensource project across all other platforms to garner some positive PR :)

Again Eric, thank you for continuing to keep this working in Firefox!!!

Developer response

Love this addon. Can't use it anymore as I upgraded to FF18. Any plans to upgrade?Tried the suggestion about reinstalling addon. That solved the issue. I was getting a non-compatible with this version of FF and it was then disabled.

The "coolkey" doesn't work at all on mac, making this impractical. I prefer pwdhash, but it doesn't work on Firefox 4, so I gave this a try... what a mistake, got locked out of my bank account because when I was activating the "coolkey" from the menu it wasn't generating the same password as it was when I was just using passwordmaker without the coolkey... I don't know, maybe it wasn't detecting the domain properly... hard for me to know... either way, not useful.

I used this for a little while, and it seemed to be working fine. Then it stopped generating the same passwords that it gave me. As a result, I became completely locked out of every site I used this on. Fortunately, I was able to get reset my accounts and enter new passwords that I can remember without having to rely on this add on to generate them for me. If you chose to use this, then do yourself a favor and write the passwords it gives you down somewhere. That will save you the trouble of having to reset the passwords later.

This is the best password generator I have ever used!A brilliant idea! To get the best security, one should never keep ANY (even encrypted!) information about you passwords, because it can be potentially decrypted (especially if your master password is not strong enough). Thus, in combination with your strong master password and Key Logger program (e.g. KeyScrambler--a great software), your passwords will be really safe for anyone to get hands on!

The program offers many Hash-algorithms, password strenght indicator, as well as possibility to regulate password length, include special characters, prefixes, modifiers, etc. Just spent a little bit of time trying to get used to this program and you will realize this is the best password generating software offered. Inded, all best things in life are free!!!Not only does not the software store any information about your passwords in the computer, but it also gives an option to clear a generated password from the clipboard in a certain time (e.g. 15 seconds)! Overall, brilliant idea, great user-friendly design. I cannot imagine how I would manage my stuff without PasswordMaker.Five stars are well earned! Thank you so much for this program to the developer!!!

This is one of my essential addons.It's perfect for someone, like me, with a less than perfect memory... I only need to remember one password and the rest are still nice and secure. It does take some time to get use to but it's well worth the effort. It's even great for accounts that need the password regularly changed.

A security problem with Firefox's password manager is that its kept locally, albeit secured, together with a username and its URL. Thus, the file can be copied, the encrypted files extracted, and because no limits can be imposed on examining a file, brute force decryption methods can be made indefinitely until a master password is found, such as with the freeware program, FireMaster. As more financial institutions go online, the benefit for the work involved makes it increasingly more lucrative for a professional hacker, and the losses great for a user. A simple way to insure best security is to generate an NSA or NIST quality password that is never stored, but used as needed, and that some way can be made to easily remember such as password.

This app does such a thing reliably, including using variables to increasingly confound the password, while still maintaining ease in remembering a password. The program is very flexible and covers many possible ways to use a master password, username and password combination, but with a price, its requires one to read the manual in detail to understand what is being done and what the many fields, and options, that are available in this app.

For a simple general use, this app has a basic mode, which uses a strong cipher generator. But many older websites limit the total characters for a password, or only take alphanumerics, or a limited number of symbols, and few allow the full unicode set including international characters. Thus, the basic mode can generate unsupported passwords for a particular site. If one customized websites as needed, the user has to remember specific customizations for each websites unless its exported in a configuration file that is then uploaded to a 'secret' location to be used on other computers elsewhere.

Luckily, I've found a way to use this app with limited customization that's easy to rmember.

Users should know that many password generator apps do not generate passwords that would not meet standards set by NIST document SP800-63V1_0_2.pdf or reduce their security by storing important local variables with FireFox. Many apps also do not specify which hash algorithm was used to create their passwords, and thus, its not pedigreed by the quality of documentation and analysis given such algorithm. One also cannot be sure if a truly secure hash was implemented properly, or that a backdoor has been built into the application somewhere.

So far, PasswordMaker passes my muster and appears to be one of the most secure methods for making quality passwords. It suffers a tad from its rich but very tech laden, user interface that could use a little more cosmetics to appeal to general users. Its fine for me.

This is an absolute must for me. I have like 50+ internet accounts, all with secure passwords. All I have to do is remember one master password. There are other password tools and generators that are perhaps more popular, but NONE so powerful as this one.

The level of control over password generation is unparalleled, bar none! And yet, it's so easy to use. You can create groups, and within those groups, you can have accounts -- each with specific parameters regarding that particular password. You can specify pretty much every aspect of the password: the length, the character set, whether to auto-populate, any modifiers to hash in, l33t level, l33t usage before and/or after password generation, any prefixes and/or suffixes, username, and hash method. I mean, what more could ask? If you don't want that level of control over each password, you can specify global settings and have at it.

Once the password is generated, it will show you the relative strength of the generated password (and this, my friends, is key). You can also specify auto-complete fields. Other password extensions don't do any of that.

TIPS I have found helpful:1. hold ALT and press the ` key (left of the number 1) -- this activates the CoolKey and fills in all password fields

2. changing the character set order, can change the password

3. you can export your settings -- in case your computer dies, or you have more than one computer, or more than one OS

4. because you can create accounts, I use it for non-net accounts

This is really the most sophisticated password extension available. There are many features I haven't even touched. This extension is for net novices AND net know-it-alls alike.